Bequest content determines the amount of inheritance tax

The decisive factor for the application of preferential inheritance tax regulations is the content of a bequest, not the actual performance by the heir to fulfill the bequest.

Whether a preferential inheritance tax regulation, for example for business assets, applies to a bequest depends on the object specified in the bequest. In contrast, the asset actually bequeathed by the heir to the legatee at a later date is of no significance for the preferential tax rules. With this reasoning, the Federal Fiscal Court denied the daughter of an entrepreneur the preferential treatment for business assets after she had also received voting rights in the same amount from the heir in addition to the usufructuary right stipulated in the bequest and had thus acquired the status of a co-entrepreneur.